Read The Contract (Nightlong #1) for Free Online Page B

know you won’t try to run–”
    “You’ll catch me, so what? You’ll just catch me. What are you really worried about?” I caught a glance at his face and his cheeks were red, and he did seem genuinely worried.
    “You’ll run again… but what if you get hurt this time? I want to stop you from running before you injure yourself or do something silly. Please tell me what would make you stop wanting to run.”
    I turned my eyes to his, taking my concentration away from the TV show neither of us were really watching. He looked genuinely and bizarrely worried. It was disconcerting.
    “Please, tell me what you need and I’ll give it you, Ciara.”
    There he was again… using my name.
    “Dante, don’t–”
    “Just tell me,” he said softly, taking my coffee cup from me. He held my hand and old, familiar feelings surfaced in me. Hateful feelings.
    Loving feelings.
    Taking a deep breath, I whispered, “I want someone to come with me to galleries and to restaurants and to museums. I want a man to hold my hand when I’m clothes shopping and for him to like the things I wear.”
    “I love everything you wear. You have great taste. What else do you want?” He sounded optimistic, like it could all be so easy… like it could all be arranged. It was hope I heard in his voice… but he was kidding himself, and we both knew it.
    “I want to have friends and to live a life and to have love, have a man who loves me, have him love me every night… every morning. I want love, Dante. I’m so alone. I just want love.”
    I broke down into tears, hoping he’d take pity on me, hoping he’d understand.
    “I can’t give you any of that, Ciara–”
    Nodding, I replied, “I know.”
    Wiping tears from my eyes, I kept nodding. If he was able to give me all that, he would have done – ages ago. He’d had six years to make his move. I’d given him six years already.
    “However, I can show you how desirable you are to me.”
    “I want more than to be desirable, I want to be more,” I said, pleading with him to please give me more.
    “You are more,” he said, reaching out to touch my cheek, “but I can’t give you more. I wish I could, but I can’t.”
    “Why?”
    “I can’t, Ciara. I just can’t.”
    I left the room in tears and rushed upstairs, away from him. He wouldn’t let me run free, he wouldn’t let me in, he wouldn’t let me love him.
    I hated him!
    I slammed my bedroom door and ran to my bed, throwing myself on top of the unmade sheets in agony, in floods of tears. I was crying so loudly I didn’t hear him enter but I felt him sink into the mattress with me and put his arms around me from behind.
    “Please don’t cry. Don’t cry.”
    I turned and pressed my face into his chest, trying to gain succour from him. Eventually my sobs abated and I laid calmly in his arms, his heart beating hard beneath my ear. He tugged his fingers through my thick curls and kissed my forehead.
    “Terrible, terrible things happened to me in the past. Don’t ask for what I can’t give.”
    “Let me go, then.”
    “I can’t!”
    I shot up off the bed. “Why fucking not?”
    “What you do for me… it’s the only thing keeping me sane!” he yelled, protestation thick within his tone. “You signed the deal… I didn’t force you to.”
    He stood on the opposite side of the bed to where I stood. I needed the bed’s width between us otherwise I would seriously have clocked him one with the bedside lamp.
    “Six years of my life, Dante. Let’s consider that notion. In six years a lot can happen. A girl becomes a woman. I was eighteen, damn it! Eighteen! I didn’t know what I was getting myself into and time has changed me. Time here, hours spent alone, have changed me. I’m ready to live again; I’ve done my mourning and I’m ready to live again.”
    “Mourning?” He grimaced, confused.
    I turned my back to him. “You wouldn’t understand.”
    “You’re right, I wouldn’t. I don’t mourn… I automate.